My inspiration for this composition came from a Pinterest pin. There’s no end to the ideas there, and I’ve pinned many. I’d have quite a collection of my own art work if I sat down more often and used them.

I’m loving the colours here. In my idea of a perfect world there would be predominantly reds and yellows during the day, and pinks and purples at night, with all other colours merely accents.

We are enjoying the most incredible weather for January today. Well above freezing and snow melting everywhere. W looked out the front window this morning and mused that perhaps winter was over. That was a pretty delusional observation. I’ll remind him of it when we’re in the middle of a blizzard in May.

The latest incarnation of the paint room aka art studio, in which I have spent hours moving things around and minutes actually working on stuff.

There isn’t a lot of sunshine yet today, but that’s okay. We’re having gorgeous autumn weather into the last ten days of September. Six work shifts to go. I know countdowns are bad, and a form of wishing your life away while you wait for something to end or begin or happen but I’m doing it anyway. Anticipation is half the fun, right?

On my second last working Wednesday, all alone between six and eight with no appointments and no customers and no real ambition, I decided to write down all the things I will miss about work when I’m finally done with it on the last day of this month. I took a sheet of paper out of the printer, got one of my three erasable pens out of my pocket (there must always be three) and sat down to write a list. Things I will miss. Ten minutes crawled by. Everything I thought of was something I actually wouldn’t miss at all. In fact I knew I would be beside myself with relief and happiness to never have to deal with that shit again. So then I divided the paper in two and on the second half started a list of things I will NOT miss. I filled up that side and the entire back with such a pile of work related crap it put me in a totally pissy mood. I should not be left alone on Wednesday nights. I’ve always said that, but no one listens.

While this process was all very cathartic, I won’t be sharing my list of negativity from hell. Going over it once was enough. Indisputable proof that it’s time to walk away.

W is coming home today. He’s been in Ontario at the island closing things up for the winter. He’s bringing my water-color paint supplies home with him. I can’t remember why I thought it was a good idea to leave them there, but now I’ll have fewer excuses for stifling my creative urges as I amass all my tools and gather ideas and look up art classes. Plan projects, get organized, have another cup of coffee, read some blogs, play some candy crush, make a pot of soup…..

Is it a little sad that procrastination is my favourite thing in the world? (Except for reading for hours and watching bizarre things on Netflix. I never put those things off.) If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, I’ve been headed in that direction forever. I do entire blog posts in my head in the middle of the night on my brilliant blog where I discuss brilliant things. Then dawn breaks and work looms and Netflix sends me a notice that some dumb thing I’ve been watching has new episodes. So the brilliance is put on hold. Or forgotten.

Well, it’s an interesting theory/excuse, hey?

No, I’m not really buying it either. But my point is (YES! I have a POINT!) work will no longer loom. Huge chunks of stress will dissolve right before my eyes. I will have to find something completely different to get all pissy about. I will answer more prompts and accept more challenges. Or at the very least, drum up the courage to share my artistic creative genius. You people are all really nice and will humor me on that one, right? Thank you, I knew I could count on you.

This picture was taken a couple of days ago when the sun was shining, the sky was a beautiful blue filled with fluffy clouds, and I thought W would like to see what the neighbors new fence looks like. For which we owe him half of whatever it cost. W is off to his island again for most of the summer, sending me texts and drinking rum. And fishing. Let’s not forget all that fishing.

Today the sun is shining somewhere else. The sky is a thick grey blanket. It’s spitting rain. It’s Monday. I have to go to work. Talk about your double-double whammy. For now I don’t have Mondays off anymore. My schedule has always been at the whim of circumstance and a boss who schedules our lives like it’s some kind of random crap shoot. Sundays, Thursdays and Fridays are now my days off. Now that I’ve put that in writing it’s likely to change completely before the month is over.

Do you ever feel like the only reason you can live through something is because you know it will eventually end? That it won’t last forever? Must be the gloomy day talking. I have about a hundred and thirteen days to go before retirement. Give or take ninety if I decide to work until my license expires on December 31st. I am old and tired and would like to have EVERY day of the week off. I read three posts the other day by three different bloggers who all used the tag ‘aging’. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in my feelings about this process. I don’t like knowing there are things I just can’t do anymore. I thought I would age gracefully but often I’m just cranky and sad about it all.

So it’s time to bring Jazzy back and live vicariously through her eternal optimism and snark. Maybe some of it will rub off on me. Yes, I’m being completely weird because she can’t say anything if I don’t make her say it. Poor thing. I love this thing going around Facebook where people do 100 days of Happiness and write some happy thing every day. What a great way to be grateful and recognize the good things in your life.

Stay tuned for “Jazzy Does Happiness” from whenever I start until the day I kiss work goodbye. It’s looking like the end of September. I can stay happy until then or die trying. God, I hope I don’t die trying.

This is one of the views from where I’m sitting right now on our last day of four in Mykonos. What an incredible place. I’m going to try to bring some of this sunshine home with me. They seem to have plenty to go around. It’s our first truly lazing around doing nothing day, so I’ll get back at it.

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